


Advent Fics 2020

by Notawritershh



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Advent, Alternate Universe - Human, Baking, Christmas, Christmas Cards, Christmas Challenge, Christmas Decorations, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Music, Christmas Party, Christmas Shopping, Christmas Tree, Christmas films, Dancing, F/M, Hangover, Ice Skating, Winter, Winter Walks, christmas markets, tiny bit of drunkness, waltz
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:21:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 25
Words: 13,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27821440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Notawritershh/pseuds/Notawritershh
Summary: A series of fics based on prompts for every day of advent!These were supposed to be written daily and a bit longer but I’m busy so they’re only like a page long oops
Relationships: Eleventh Doctor/Clara Oswin Oswald
Comments: 5
Kudos: 3





	1. Lots of love, Clara and the Doctor

The sound of the keyboard was making Clara’s brain hurt and she thanked herself for spending so many hours writing that she could now find most of the keys with her eyes shut.   
“Thank you for ltting m know th dadlin for th nxt book.”  
She groaned. Of course the most commonly used letter in the English alphabet was broken on her keyboard. And of course her publisher wanted the next book far sooner than she could finish it. When she wanted to be a writer she has pictured something more along the lines of drinking coffee out of cute cups in a comfortable office and relaxing while creating stories for people to lose themselves in. She wondered if she would get more done if she didn’t have to spend so much time waiting for the approval of her publisher. Writing was entertaining, emailing publishers was not. Especially when there were far more entertaining things to do.  
Entertaining things such as watching her boyfriend slide down the icy drive to the front door, hands full of shopping bags waving above his head like a drunk giraffe. The sound of his body thudding into the front door echoed around the quiet street, followed by an angry yell and when Clara looked out the window again she could see packs of Christmas cards pouring out of a tear in the bag. She wondered how one man could know so many people, even after all the travelling they had done and with all the people they had met it still felt like there shouldn’t have been that many.   
She took his return from the shops as a long overdue sign. A sign that she had done more than enough work for the day and the time to relax with her boyfriend was the most important thing to do in that moment. Besides, when he burst into the cramped study and read the emails over her shoulder he became more than enough of a distraction to make her give up on working completely.  
“How’s working going?” they said simultaneously.  
“Well I’m trying to figure out how I’m supposed to write books and blogs to make money to replace my computer without my computer, you?”   
“I was going to film Vlogmas but so far I’ve not really done any Christmas things so instead I went shopping and rambled to a camera about history only to realise the camera was out of battery and I spent half an hour looking like a madman for nothing”  
Clara pressed a kiss to his cheek.   
“You are a madman, you say that all the time”   
“I suppose I am” he chuckled.  
Quinn took her hands, pulling her out of the chair with a smile.  
“You are going to love what I have planned for the rest of today”  
“Oh really?”  
He nodded excitedly, leading her into the living room, where he had already set up for filming. The floor was covered in stacks of Christmas cards, each labelled with families and groups of friends.  
“You know I was kind of expecting a romantic date, rose petals, Christmas films, our favourite popcorn” she said, accidentally knocking one stack with her foot.  
He apologised, already knowing everything was forgiven when she grinned at him and they sat, legs crossed on the floor ready to write cards to all the friends they had met over the years.

“This is going to be a really boring video”  
The writing was almost finished, and so far all they had recorded was two hours of relative silence.  
“This is going to be a timelapse while I talk about the history of Christmas cards”  
“I love how you make really mundane things like Christmas cards interesting enough to hold the attention of your 11k subscribers. You make it seem like it’s the most wonderful thing on Earth”  
“Everything is the most wonderful thing on Earth when I have you” he mumbled.  
She kissed him, pulling him closer by his bow tie.   
“I love you” she whispered, leaning back a little, “and that was really very cheesy”.


	2. 1 Lady Dancing (with her boyfriend)

It was one of those amazing days where Quinn and Clara didn’t really feel like moving. One of those days spent cuddling on the couch, all work abandoned once again, sitting untouched on their desks, deemed unimportant in comparison to the chance to spend hours close together. The only times they did move was to make snacks and cups of tea and hot chocolate. They stayed there, his arm around her fingers intertwined with his long after their limbs went stiff with the lack of movement.  
“You how know I hate being idle?” Quinn said.  
“Yeah?” Clara rolled onto her back on the couch to look up at him, her head resting on his lap.  
“This has actually been amazing”  
She chuckled, pulling a blanket closer around her shoulders.  
“It really has”

“Morning sleepyhead” he whispered as she sat up, pushing away the blanket with a confused groan. He pushed her hair away from her face as she opened her eyes.  
“What? What time is it?”  
Clara looked around. The curtains were open, but it was dark outside and the room was lit by the TV screen.  
“Like 7pm. I was joking” he laughed. “I know you didn’t sleep well last night, so I thought I’d let you stay there for a bit”.  
“Oh. Thank you.”  
“Want some dinner? We can catch up on Strictly while we eat”  
Clara nodded enthusiastically, realising how little they had eaten that day.

“I wish I could dance” Clara muttered, just audible above the chatter on the TV as that week’s episode of Strictly came to a close.  
“Dance with me then”   
“What? I’m bad at dancing”  
“You don’t have to be good at dancing to dance. Cool is not cool!”  
Before Clara could respond he was playing Christmas music on his phone.  
“What happened to Vlogmas? Don’t you need to film for that?”  
“Eh. There’s always next year. I’m sure they’d be happy with a five minute unedited clip of us dancing”  
She nodded, knowing there was no point in arguing. She had to admit, she’d wanted to dance with him as soon as he mentioned it, and he knew her well enough to encourage her instead of letting her back out.  
So they waltzed, and tangoed and jived and drunk giraffed and every other dance they could think of. They danced to every Christmas song they could think of, not caring if the neighbours who walked past could see them. They sang and tried and failed to copy the lifts that the professionals made look so easily. They span around the room until dizziness overtook them and they tripped over thin air and collapsed onto the couch, laughing until their stomachs hurt. Even with the pain they were still struggling to stop. And when the laughter finally settled into just the occasional giggles they got back up and danced again.  
This time it was slower. Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas played in the background. Quinn looked more nervous, like he was taking it more seriously. His bit his lip, his brow furrowed in concentration with each step he took as he lead her on a waltz around the room. She grinned at him as she twirled under his raised arm. The nerves faded quickly as she laughed softly.  
“What are you laughing at?”  
“You make me so happy, smiling isn’t enough to show it”  
He laughed too, then kissed the back of her hand, bowing like a prince at a ball.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pretty easy to guess but the prompt for this one was dancing to Christmas music, I actually had a lot of fun listening to all my favourite Christmas songs while writing it


	3. Fresh Waffles and Fairy Lights

“What do you want to do today?”  
“Something awesome”  
That was how most of their trips started, the declaration that they were bored and then the decision to do something awesome.   
Today that something awesome was the bustling Christmas markets that lined the streets and filled the town square with the sound of chatter and music and the overwhelming smell of cinnamon and ginger.   
“Remember last time we went on an unplanned trip like this?” Quinn said, holding tight to Clara’s hand so they didn’t lose each other as they ducked through the crowds.  
“Yeah, I can’t believe we made it all the way to Finland before Amy and Rory got mad at us for going without telling them”  
He laughed.  
“Luckily this time we’re only an hour away instead of 3 days”  
Clara rested her head on his arm as the walked.  
“We talk about that as though it was longer than a month ago”

They ducked and weaved through the crowds, a light snow now beginning to fall as the sun set. Clara was shivering by a stall selling waffles, waiting for Quinn to come back from whatever had distracted him that time. She stamped her feet, blowing warm air onto her hands.  
“Waffle for the lady?” The man at the stall called to her.  
“Oh, no thanks. My boyfriend has my purse”  
“On the house then, warm you up a bit” he said with a grin.  
“Oh alright then. I’ll pay you back as soon as he reappears though”  
The man laughed and five minutes later she was holding two plates of waffles piled high with chocolate sauce and whipped cream and sprinkles and what appeared to be all the sugar in the world. Still the man was refusing to let her offer to pay for them.   
“Whatcha got there?” Quinn said from behind her, making her jump.  
“Free waffles apparently”  
“Ooh nice can I have one?”  
“Absolutely not. I shall eat them both right in front of you was punishment for disappearing” she said, already handing him the more sugary looking of the two.  
“I did have a reason for disappearing” he said, handing her a brown paper bag. Inside was the most beautiful, warmest looking scarf.  
“You were shivering” he said, pulling the scarf and draping it around her neck, “and I was just going to come back and get it for you as a Christmas present tomorrow while you were working, but you look like you need it now”  
He shoved a forkful of waffle into his mouth and carried set off walking around the market like he hadn’t just won the award for most thoughtful man in the world, at least to Clara.

“Oh my stars” Clara whispered.  
They had finally reached the main square, the epicentre of the markets. A light dusting of snow covering the ground, almost completely undisturbed as most people walked around the edge of the circle, not wanting to ruin the picture perfect scene in front of them. In the middle of the circle of stalls a brass band played and the whole area was lit by a web of strings of fairy lights, draped between ornate victorian lampposts. Clara sat on the closest bench, watching how the lights reflected off the shining instruments as they played.  
“I love the fairy lights” Quinn mumbled, settling onto the bench next to her “they’re like stars except closer and only some of them burn you when you touch them”  
“Then let’s sit here and stargaze a while”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on what I’m missing most about going to the Christmas markets this year


	4. Fell For Each Other

“I still can’t believe you have never been ice skating” Clara gasped.  
“Clara I can barely walk without falling over. Three days ago I slid down the whole length of the drive and slammed into the front door, remember?”  
“Yeah but you stayed standing” she said, finishing tightening the straps on her skates and standing up.   
“The door held me up” he laughed, following her to the rink, immediately stumbling and having to catch himself on the wall.  
“Well I can hold you up” she said, finding her balance and holding her hands out to him. He pried his hands of the wall, slipping towards her and she skated forward slightly to catch him. He clung onto her for dear life as she guided him around the rink, shaking her head at each of his yelps when she accidentally strayed too far from the safety of the wall.   
“I’ve got you, you’re fine” she laughed, switching her position so she was by his side, her arm linked with his. “Bend your knees a bit”  
He looked at his knees, confused, slipping again when he lost focus on her. Another skater whizzed past as he picked himself back up.  
“It will lower your centre of gravity you beanpole” she grabbed his arm while he stabilised himself. “And it makes your face a bit lower for me to kiss”  
He happily obliged, smiling as she kissed his cheek. They continued skating, arms wrapped around each other, laughing at each slip and stumble that threatened to pull them back down onto the cold ground. He held his camera in one hand once he trusted himself enough, hoping that he could get some footage that wasn’t too shaky. Once he had enough filmed he slipped the camera back into his pocket and focussed on Clara. He was so distracted by her presence, warm and comforting, next to him that he hadn’t even noticed they were closer to the middle of the rink now. When he finally noticed he gasped, looking at her in bright, childlike excitement. The sudden twist towards her surprised even him and his legs flew out from under him. He crumpled onto the ice, pulling her down with him before coming to a rest flat on his back with her on top of him.  
“I think you just fell for me” he whispered in her ear.  
“I think I just fell because of you” she whispered back, blushing at his joke despite her refutation.  
“It’s really cold on this ice”  
“Oh sorry” she mumbled, picking herself up, only now realising people were staring.

Clara allowed the cheap skating rink fries to warm her up, washing them down with a hot chocolate while Quinn returned the skates. He collapsed into the chair opposite her, snapping her attention away from the marshmallows melting in the chocolatey foam.  
“You never explained how you are so good at skating”  
“Mum used to take me every chance we got. Not as much as someone who came skating to learn how or anything but quite a few times around Christmas every year. I haven’t been back since I was 19”  
“When she…” he trailed off, knowing how much she still missed her mother.  
“Yeah. I wasn’t expecting to be any good still. Maybe it’s like riding a bike”.  
He took a sip of his hot chocolate, whipped cream covering his top lip to form a moustache and he laughed as she did the same until she pointed out that he had one too and clearly hadn’t noticed. He grinned and pulled out his phone, snapping photo after photo.  
“Oh yeah this one’s definitely going to be the thumbnail for today’s video” he flicked to the one before the moustaches had been smudged away by all the kisses. Neither of them were looking at the camera, they faced it but they were looking at each other out of the corners of their eyes. “The subscribers think it’s really cute that we can’t take our eyes off each other”  
“Yeah until you’re so distracted staring at me that you fall over and pull me down in the middle of the ice rink” she laughed, wiping the last of the hot chocolate from the corner of his mouth with her thumb and leaning forward to kiss his cheek.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tbh I don’t have tomorrow’s pre-written and I’m supposed to spend tomorrow teaching myself biology so we’ll see how this goes and if there isn’t one tomorrow I’m sorry


	5. Sprucing Things Up

“If you fall down the ladder and die I’m going to kill you” Clara hissed as Quinn stepped up onto the ladder with his usual confident grin, bouncing with each step and pretending to slip on the last one, much to Clara’s horror. She waited patiently at the bottom of the landing, listening to the crashes and thuds as Quinn rooted through the attic, finally yelling in excitement as he found the boxes of Christmas decorations, finally emptying a bag of tinsel over her head.

They had finally managed to carry all of the boxes to the various rooms of the house and Clara still had tinsel in her hair. Quinn sat cross legged among the boxes, digging through them.  
“We don’t have a Christmas tree” Clara said suddenly. “It broke last year when Rory fell into it”  
“He didn’t fall I rugby tackled him don’t take that achievement away from me. We can go get a new one and decorate later”  
Clara agreed, pulling on her coat and handing him his camera, reminding him that he still hadn’t filmed anything for the day.

Clara looked around at the Christmas trees that surrounded her, the overwhelming smell of leaves and mud reminding her of happy childhood memories picking out the family Christmas tree with her parents. Quinn swaggered over to her with a cup of tea and an axe balanced on his shoulder.  
“I almost lost you amongst the trees” he laughed, gesturing to the tiny fir trees that surrounded her.  
“No” she said, pointing at the axe. “No no no nope no, you are not. No. You are going to cut your…no. We are picking a tree and one of the professional trained people can cut it down for us”  
He handed her the cup of tea and put his arm around.  
“Do not bring that axe near me”.

Quinn held her hand, though she was still wary of the axe, and allowed her to lead him through the trees while he talked to the camera about the history of Christmas trees, listing more facts than Clara had ever thought someone could remember.   
“Ooh this one looks nice, bound to spruce up the living room a bit”  
“What?”  
“Spruce”  
“It’s a pine, Quinn”  
Quinn sighed. “Please just laugh so my subscribers think I’m funny”  
“They already know you’re funny. Now, do you want me to film you cutting the tree or not?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A shorter one since I was too busy to write yesterday. We put up the Christmas decorations and had the family Christmas party over zoom and overall I got around 5 minutes of writing time so you get two even shorter chapters today instead


	6. Deck the Halls

Clara yawned, her head resting on the cold car window as her and Quinn finally arrived home from the tree farm, wondering why they had gone to one so far away, and how he was so full of energy.  
“Clara come on” he shouted, “we need to get this tree up and decorated”  
She dragged herself out of the car, helping him drag the tree inside.  
“You know it’s 3am right? You’ll wake the neighbours”  
“The neighbours knew what they were signing up for when they welcomed us onto this street”

Clara watched with amusement as she filmed Quinn’s attempt to position the tree.  
“Left a bit. Right. Left. Forward. Wait no turn it around?” She suggested between fits of laughter as he battled the tree, trying his best to follow her instructions. He paused, out of breath.  
“Are you just messing with me?” he gasped, seeing tears from the laughter form in the corners of her eyes.  
“Yeah it looks fine from all directions, you picked a great tree” 

They sang along to every Christmas song that played as they decorated the tree in their usual haphazard way, throwing tinsel and fairy lights wherever they felt like and creating the most beautiful mess they had ever seen, before picking out their favourite ornaments and settling in front of the camera to talk about each of them.  
“This” Quinn started, holding up a tiny 1960s police box “is the TARDIS. Someone in my family actually stole it like 50 years ago from a tiny little souvenir shop and every Christmas I used to take it off the tree and go on adventures with it. Sometimes I got into fights with my cousins over it, one year my cousin Harry locked me in a cupboard and stole it, but when I moved out for university I was given it as a good luck charm and it led me to Clara”  
He turned around, hanging it on the tree while Clara picked the next one to talk about.  
“I know it looks a little autumnal rather than Christmas but this represents a leaf that I do actually have tucked into a book in our room. The leaf blew into my dad’s face and he stumbled into the road, being saved from an oncoming car by my mum. My dad said it’s the most important leaf in human history. I blew into the world on that leaf, and Quinn bought this for me our first Christmas together”  
They showed off a few more decorations, a metal dog, a small motorbike helmet and a Statue of Liberty from Amy and Rory before finally moving onto the rest of the house. The sun began to rise as they were draping fairy and tinsel on the trees outside.   
“Morning kids” a neighbour called to them as he set off for work.  
“Morning!” Quinn called back brightly, before turning to Clara. “Clara I think we forgot to go to bed last night”  
“Yeah no kidding,” she laughed, throwing a piece of tinsel at him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the second one today, so I’m all caught up. Honestly I have a story of how they met in my head and if it wasn’t so based on them I would watch that Christmas film


	7. Do you wanna build a snowman?

“Clara?”  
Clara rolled over, burying her face in a pillow.  
“Clara wake up”  
She stayed still, wondering how long she could keep pretending to be asleep.  
“Clara, I love you”  
She groaned, opening her eyes.   
“I love you too”  
He laughed, standing up so quickly he almost poured the fresh coffee he held on her.  
“I knew you were awake” he said, putting the mug down next to her before he spilled it and sitting on the bed, holding her hands in his and playing with her hair while she woke up a bit more. “I was thinking we could build snowmen today”.  
She sat up quickly, a bright smile on her face.  
“It snowed?”  
“Well,” he mumbled, “no. But I found a recipe for fake snow and I’ve also got playdough or marshmallows for edible ones. I don’t know, I thought it would be fun”  
Clara thought about it for a while.  
“You know what, it does sound fun. As long as you make us some omelettes first”

Quinn’s arms wrapped around Clara’s waist as she finished drying the dishes.   
“I got out all the ingredients for the fake snow and set up for filming when you’re ready”  
She smiled, putting the plate away and hurrying to the table to curl up next to him, watching with amusement as he recited his introduction and made the snow. She thought about all of the comments on the last few videos along the lines of ‘Clara and Quinn look at each other with so much love’ and ‘they are so perfect for each other’ and ‘please adopt us’. She adored him, but it was these moments where he was filled with childlike wonder and excitement that made her love him the most. Had she not already loved him before, watching his expression of pure glee as he sprinkled the fake snow onto the table would have been enough to make her fall in love. She laughed to herself, wondering how long she had been lost in thought, and if that length of time she’d been staring at him with all the love she felt shown on her face would be brought in the comments when the video was posted.

“Okay, I’m dividing the snow up between us and we have an hour to make the best snowman”  
Clara nodded, already feeling competitive.  
“Three, two, one, go!”  
He tapped the timer and immediately began working with the snow, covering himself with it within the first few minutes as his snow creature built up in front of him. He occasionally paused to steal snow from Clara and to sprinkle it in her hear and on her nose, making all the mess that he could, distracting her from the competition until the hour ran out way too fast.  
“We finished?”  
“Good enough”  
“I made a little snow-Quinn for you,” Clara turned it to the camera. The snowman was tall and thin and when he toppled over Quinn pointed out that it deserved extra points because it was as clumsy as him.  
“I feel a bit silly now, I made a snow monster with pointy teeth”  
“Awww it’s like the one outside the pub I worked at when we met”  
Quinn looked closer at it with a smile.  
“Yeah, I suppose it does.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m getting increasingly obsessed with this AU i love them


	8. Cuddles and Christmas Films

‘Hey guys, really sorry but no Vlogmas today. Don’t worry, me and Clara are both fine and there will be a video as scheduled tomorrow!’  
Clara rubbed her eyes, blinking away the sleep and read the post on Quinn’s channel again. The bed next to her was cold and this was the first time in a while that she had woken up by herself and not when Quinn brought her a wake up mug of coffee. It was almost midday and there was no cup next to her, and despite the ‘don’t worry’ message she felt a brief sense of panic. Not bothering to change out of her fluffy pyjamas, she wrapped a blanket around her shoulders and made her way downstairs. To her relief she could hear Quinn humming to himself. He burst out of the living room and met her on the stairs, greeting her with a kiss.  
“What do you want for dinner? I’ve bought popcorn and marshmallows and hot chocolate”  
“Which aren’t dinner things” she interrupted.   
“I knew you would say that which is why I also got nachos”  
She laughed, and when he held out his hand she took it, still unsure of what was happening. In the living room the curtains were closed and the lights were off, so it was only lit by fairy lights on the ceiling. There was a huge bucket of popcorn in the middle of the couch, just waiting to eaten. Quinn sat Clara down next to the popcorn and disappeared again, returning with two plates of nachos.  
“Nachos for the lady, and I shall go and fetch your drink”  
When he came back he handed her a hot chocolate, piled high with whipped cream, chocolate shavings, marshmallows and sprinkles.  
“Quinn. This is – this is amazing but what is this for?”  
“I’ve been kinda dragging you around and getting you out of bed early and being generally chaotic these last few days and I thought you’d want a rest. In the nicest way possible, you looked exhausted yesterday,” he laughed as she lightly hit his arm, although she agreed with him. “I was just going to take you to the cinema but that would require leaving the house again and we’d only get to watch one film. Here I have all of our favourite Christmas films ready to play and we can watch as many as you want.”  
“You are the best, you know that, right?”  
“Of course I know that. You tell me that a lot”  
She smiled, shuffling herself and the pile of blankets she had accumulated closer to him, enjoying the nachos and hot chocolate as he played the first of many, many films.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another short one because there’s not exactly much you can say when they’re just sitting on the couch


	9. Walking in a Winter Wonderland

“Morning raggedy man!” A cheery, Scottish voice could be heard, muffled by the glass of the window and the sound of knocking. Clara and Quinn sat up, rubbing sleep out of their eyes and brushing away crumbs of popcorn, their minds fogged by the early morning confusion. They played a silent round of rock, paper, scissors, which Clara lost and, with an angry mutter about Quinn cheating, she got up and answered the door.  
“Way too early Amy” she mumbled.  
“It’s 10am. We said we’d be here at 9:30. You’re just late.”  
“To be fair, so are we,” Rory cut in before Clara could reply.  
“Right, I’ll go drag Quinn off the couch, you might as well come in out of the cold while we get ready. Sorry about the mess, we fell asleep watching TV”.  
Amy stormed into the living room, where Quinn had bundled himself in blankets and gone back to sleep. She sat, legs crossed, in front of him and flicked his face repeatedly until he pushed her away and got up.

“This was a horrible idea, who’s idea was this?” Quinn groaned. He pulled his coat closer around himself.  
“I believe it was you who, four years ago, said: ‘we should make this a tradition. Every year let’s walk up this hiking trail and get drinks at the pub at the top of the hill’, wasn’t it?” Amy said, also failing to disguise how cold she felt. It grew colder and colder as they made their way up the hill and snow was beginning to swirl around them, sticking to their eyelashes. 

The Bad Wolf Inn came into view at the top of the hill after around three hours of trudging through the snow, golden lights illuminating the traditional looking building against the bleak white surroundings. It became a race to get to the top of the hill and burst through the doors into the warmth of pub and the comfiest chair by the fire.   
The pub was almost empty, apart from a couple regulars and the sound of laughter coming from the kitchen behind the bar.  
Quinn approached the bar, drumming on it loudly, egged on by the cheers of his friends who waited at the fireplace, hanging their coats on chairs to dry.  
“What’s a man got to do to get some service around here?” He yelled, grinning as the angry blonde burst out of the kitchen and hurried towards him. She glared at him for a few seconds, then burst out laughing.  
“Good to see you Quinn. John’s just doing the washing up but he’ll be done soon. What can I get you?”  
“Tea, but the strong stuff. Leave the bag in.”  
She nodded, unimpressed.  
“Anything else?”  
“Mulled wine please. And a round of beers. And enough chips to feed an army”  
She nodded, pouring the beer and sending him back to the group.  
“John can take you your food, he’ll want to see you for a chat anyway.”

Quinn collapsed into his chair, putting the drinks on the table, closing his eyes as he took the first sip. He opened his eyes, taking in the picture-perfect room. The traditional wood made the place feel cozy, especially compared to the snow glistening outside.   
“We really should come here more often” he said.  
“Especially since your brother and his wife own the place” John said, appearing behind them with a plate piled with chips and startling Quinn.  
“Yeah that, and also because I heard the beer garden gets good reviews in the summer”.  
John laughed and Quinn ducked away, knowing that laugh was actually a sign that John was about to mess with his quiff, which made John laugh more as he pulled up a chair next to them.

“So we’re just staying here until closing time then?” Amy laughed, looking out at the sunset reflected on the snow.  
“Don’t we stay every year?” Clara said, finishing her drink.  
“Yeah it’s just fun to ask”.  
Once the other people had left Rose made her way over to the group, bringing more food and drinks with her. They danced and talked for hours, about Christmas plans and memories from John and Rose’s wedding and what they wanted to do in the new year.  
By midnight they were starting to grow tired and were finally setting off to make their way down the hill, giving each other piggybacks and throwing clumps of the freshly fallen snow at each other.  
“I already can’t wait to do this next year”, Quinn said in between lines of ‘Walking in a Winter Wonderland’, smiling as Clara buried her face in his arm. “I can’t wait to do this every year”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow school killed me for a few days huh? I am now done with exams for a while which is good because I have a bit of catching up to do.


	10. No Quinn you can’t go talk to the mall Santa

“I hate Christmas shopping,” Clara growled, waiting for Quinn to catch up after getting distracted by a salesman showing off some new toy. He ran up to her, slinging his arm around her shoulders.  
“I love Christmas shopping” he said, laughing as he waved goodbye to the salesman.  
He stepped forward, clapping his hands together.  
“Who we buying gifts for?”  
“My dad, my gran, Amy, Rory, John, Rose, Jane, Yaz, Angie, Artie, George, Craig, Sophie, Alfie and all the toys we can get for the children’s home.”  
Quinn raised a non existent eyebrow at her. “I think you are forgetting something, my impossible girl”  
“I will call him Stormageddon”  
“No I mean a person”  
He waited patiently as she looked away from him, crossing her arms with a huff.  
“Fine we need a present for Linda. But something dumb and impersonal like a gift card, or dry shampoo or, oooh! Anti-aging cream”  
“Or we could just play nice so that she won’t get me another dating site subscription and you an old one direction poster” he said, kissing her on the forehead. “What about getting her a bottle of wine and a mug?”  
“Deal.”

Quinn dropped the shopping bags on the floor, making Clara wince. She was glad that before they had started shopping she has convinced Quinn to let her carry the fragile things.  
“Clara, look it’s Santa Claus” he gasped, grabbing her arm.  
“You know he’s not real right?”  
“Everything is real at Christmas” he said, setting off towards him, so Clara had to grab his sleeve and pull him back. He stared at her with his best sad puppy face.  
“No Quinn you can’t go talk to the mall Santa” Clara said. He looked at the genuinely apologetic look in her eyes. He nodded sadly, picking the bags back up, immediately getting distracted by the toy shop.  
Clara lost him amongst the shelves, only able to locate him through his occasional laughs and shouts of joy. Every few minutes he would run up to her to show her a toy, begging her to let him buy it.   
With every nod of agreement he squealed and hugged her, chatting away about how much the kids at the home were going to love them.

Clara and Quinn stood, arms full of shopping, in the middle of the car park.  
“So. How do we fit all this in the car?”  
Quinn scoffed. “How do we fit all this in our house?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short one while I’m catching up. I didn’t manage to fit in all the details I wanted but oh well


	11. A party to remember (but they probably won’t)

Quinn stared straight ahead, his knuckles white as he kept his hands balled in tight fists. He was comforted by Clara’s hand on his arm. One of his suit sleeves was ripped. A bruise was forming on his cheek, there was a smear of blood on his lip and his shirt was soaked with red wine.  
“How are we still invited next year?” Clara mumbled. She was relatively unscathed compared to Quinn, but still in shock at the events of the last 5 hours.

Five hours ago they were stepping out of a taxi, in their best clothes to attend the annual Smith family Christmas party. As always his Uncle Basil was the first to greet him, in his usual magicians outfit, playing Christmas carols on his electric guitar. The benefit of Uncle Basil hosting the party every year was that no one could tell Uncle Basil to act normal. His house, his rules, and his rules stated he can do what he wants.   
They spent the night mingling as always, laughing about all the childhood memories of past Christmas parties and talking up Clara’s next book. Somehow, despite the fact that the presence of both John and Jane meant that their single braincell with a craving for chaos was united, the three of them managed to act like the perfect, grown up Smiths that they were supposed to be.  
They finally cracked when their cousin Harold finally bothered to show up, in his black suit, looking like a Bond villain as always.  
It was childish. The Smith children knew that immediately, but when Harold Saxon tells them they can’t do something it becomes their only objective.  
Which is why, four and a half hours into the party, Quinn was giving Jane a piggyback while simultaneously trying to pick John up. Clara, Yaz and Rose could do nothing but watch in horror as the three of them stumbled around the room. Of course, to no one’s surprise, Quinn tripped over the edge of a very expensive rug, causing John to topple the Christmas tree before eventually crashing into Harry, who spilled wine over the two of them, finally falling flat on his face.  
Quinn didn’t see it as his fault that Harry was mad. After all, maybe Harry shouldn’t have dared him. He thought Harry would know by now that the Smith children can never resist a dare, which left him stunned when Harry punched him in the face.  
The entire family had gathered by that point to watch in disapproving silence at the chaos. The silence continued, painful and awkward as Clara rushed to Quinn’s side, helping him stand up and stumble out of the house, his head hung to hide the smile on his face.   
“Happy Christmas!” Basil cheered as they opened the door, finally breaking the silence. “Can’t wait for next year.”

Clara opened her eyes as the taxi driver pulled up outside their house. She helped a very sleepy Quinn out of the car, into the house and up the stairs, collapsing into the bed next to him.  
“You are lucky you don’t have a concussion” she whispered. He grumbled. “And that I love you too much for the Smith family antics to scare me off now.”


	12. Mince pie girl

“Morning sleepy head” Clara whispered, only getting a groan in response. She left his breakfast on the table next to him and helped him sit himself up, touching the deep blue bruise on his face.  
“My head feels fuzzy” he whimpered, “remind me why?”  
“Harry announced he was going to get you banned from next year’s party, you said you wouldn’t fall for any of his traps and then five minutes later you were engaged in a drinking game with him, drink every time Uncle Basil says dude”  
“Went downhill from there?”  
“Very downhill very fast”  
“We’re still invited next year, right?”  
“I think if you weren’t your Uncle Basil’s favourite nephew before, you are now”

It was almost midday when Quinn finally dragged himself out of bed for a glass of water and discovered his filming equipment set up in the kitchen.  
“Hhhhh?”   
Clara patted his shoulder, sympathetically. “Amy called and said that doing a challenge where you post videos daily should include you posting videos daily and as your editor she is telling you that you have to make something today.”  
“But I don’t want to”  
“Which is why I’m going to make mince pies and you are going to sit next to me and feel sorry for yourself, on the condition that you do the intro because I don’t know what I’m doing”

Halfway through the baking process Quinn had finally picked himself up a bit, joining the conversation and helping measure out the flour. As he tipped the butter into the flour a cloud flew out, coating Clara in a fine layer. She glared at him and threw a handful of flour back at him, hitting him square in the chest.  
“You got it on my bow tie” he mumbled.  
“Wash it off then”.

“They good?” Clara said, handing Quinn another of the freshly baked mince pies.  
“I burned my mouth but it tastes too nice for me to care”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haha you thought I was going actually manage to do these on time . I don’t think I even finished this one


	13. Happily Ever After

It was snowing lightly, the white flakes settling on Clara and Quinn as they approached the theatre for one of their favourite Christmas traditions. They had first been to watch a Christmas pantomime together as first year university students for their third date, a cheap production put on by other students. Clara had later realised that she had spent more of the show watching the expressions on Quinn’s face than the show and looking back she knew that night was the turning point when she really began to fall for him.  
The year after he had already booked the tickets as a surprise when she asked him if they could go, and from that point on they agreed that no matter how bad or cheesy it got, or how much other people thought they should have grown out of it, they would go to a show every year.

Quinn collapsed into his seat next to Clara, grumbling at his knees being pressed into the chair in front, but discomfort was part of the magic of the show. During the show his hand curled around hers, squeezing it at every exciting moment. 

“Are you crying?” Clara whispered when the pantomime came to a close and the curtain dropped.  
“It’s just such a happy ending” he whispered back, his voice cracking. “The wedding scene at the end is great.”  
“Fair enough. Jack and the Beanstalk is a pretty good one.” She handed him a tissue, thinking about the ending, the living happily ever after. “Jack and the beanstalk was the first one we watched together, remember?”  
“How could I forget?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh you thought these chapters couldn’t get any shorter?   
> now that school is finished for Christmas I’m just writing short ones to catch up so that I can spend more time focusing on longer ones closer to Christmas


	14. Is it a Tradition if We’ve Never Done This Before?

Another boring meeting with her publisher was finally over, and Clara was driving home through the snow, glad to finally be done with meetings and deadlines until after Christmas. As she turned onto the street she was met with the smell of smoke and immediately panicked, wondering how best to help whichever unfortunate neighbour was going through a tragic house fire this close to Christmas. As she got drove further she realised the smell was becoming more of a barbecue smell.  
“What kind of idiot has a barbecue in this weather?” She mumbled to herself.

It was, of course, her idiot. He wore an apron over his thickest coat and had set up the barbecue near to a small gazebo, decorated with lights and tinsel and filled with blankets.  
“What are you doing?”  
“Barbecue” he responded, as if it was the most obvious answer in the world. To be fair, it was, just not on the 14th of December.  
“What is it?”  
“It’s a barbecue, Clara”  
She stood next to him, having wrapped a blanket around herself. The snow had stopped, but it was still freezing.  
“I meant the food and you know it”.  
“Oh! Turkey burgers and pigs in blankets”

Once the food was ready they had retreated to the shelter and the blanket piles to eat, admiring how the lights glowed in the early sunset, the golden light reflecting on the snow. Quinn finished burger and went inside, coming back with hot chocolate and gingerbread.  
“I like this tradition.”  
“We have literally never done this before” Clara laughed, “but I really like it too”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m starting to find how far behind I am kinda funny ngl


	15. Santa Quinn

Quinn and Clara felt as though they could barely fit in the car due to the number of present stuffed in every clear space. Clara had been put in charge of driving since Quinn’s Santa hat kept slipping into his eyes, and the drive was bringing back memories of last year, when Quinn had insisted on driving but was distracted keeping his beard from falling off and they almost crashed. It was Quinn’s friend who ran the children’s home and just like every year she sent him a list of the presents that the kids wanted for him to buy, along with some extras that he thought would be cool.  
“So we are just on the way to the kids home to drop off the presents, thank you all so much for the donations that helped pay for these, we would never be able to do this without you guys” Quinn rambled at the camera on the dashboard. “We can’t film while we are there but I promise I will tell you about their reactions when we get home”.

“Ho ho ho!” He yelled, arriving on the doorstep with his arms piled high with presents.  
“You look a bit too young to be Santa” a sceptical looking six year old said, reaching to tug at his fake beard.  
“Well I am Santa, and there is my wife, Mrs Claus” he said, pointing to Clara while she gathered all the presents she could.  
“If you are old enough to be Santa then she’s too young to be your wife” the small boy continued. “Plus Santa drives a sleigh, not a blue Austin 1100.”  
“Okay Luke we aren’t Santa and Mrs Claus, we are elves, but you can’t tell the other kids.”  
“Elves?”  
“Yeah look at us, I’ve got ears like rocket fins and she’s short”.

Once they had gotten all of the presents inside they hung around for a while to chat to the kids. Clara held Quinn’s hand the whole time, squeezing it every time he got excited and almost revealed what the presents were.   
“Are you the real Santa?” One of the kids asked.  
“Of course he is” Luke butted in before anyone else could respond. He looked up at Quinn and tapped the side of his nose with a proud smile.

Hours later they collapsed into the couch with the camera in front of them to talk about the day.  
“I think we’d make great parents” Quinn said as he pushed his hair back into place after having it tucked into the hat for so long.  
“Of course we would.” Clara leaned into him, “we would be awesome at it.”  
“It was fun introducing you to the kids as my wife too.”  
“I liked it when you did that.”  
Quinn glanced up at the camera, having forgotten it was filming.  
“Amy, when I send you this footage to edit, cut this bit out”.  
Clara rolled her eyes. “When has she ever cut out the bits that you tell her to?”


	16. Christmas Sweaters

There was glitter everywhere. Clara had only gone to hide Quinn’s Christmas presents in her office and when she returned there was a trail of gold glitter from the front door to where her boyfriend stood, looking helpless at the table.  
“There was a mishap.” He pointed at the very sparkly floor.  
“I can see that.”  
“Somehow both the bag ripped and the tub of glitter came open at the same time.”  
“Naturally. Why were you buying glitter?”  
He grinned like the Cheshire Cat, clapping his hands together.  
“Christmas sweaters”

As it turned out ‘Christmas Sweaters’ meant taking regular, nice sweaters and gluing things to them to create a monstrosity worthy of its own Christmas themed horror story. It wasn’t like they weren’t trying to make something nice, more that when Clara flirted with Quinn he would get flustered and drop whatever he was holding, and that on one of these occasions he happened to be holding a full bottle of glue, which spilled on Clara’s sweater. From that point they had given up completely on ‘nice’ and were concentrating more on a childish game throwing everything they picked up at each other. When the timer rang and they had to show the finished products to the camera for the daily video they struggled to peel the glue coated sweaters off the table.   
“It’s a good thing this table was super cheap” Clara and Quinn both laughed at the same time, looking at the glitter and stickers that were now permanently fixed to the wood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haha I’m struggling now but I am gonna be so mad at myself if I don’t write all 25


	17. One horse open sleigh (ish)

It was already growing dark and Clara was getting concerned at the lack of sudden and impulsive adventures courtesy of Quinn. He had been out all day after being dragged on a “lads only adventure” with Rory and John, so she had been spending most of the day cleaning up the remaining mess from the baking and wrapping paper and Christmas sweaters.  
“I don’t understand why that was lads only.” She heard Quinn shout to her as the front door swung open. “It was fun but it would have been more fun with you and Amy and Rose too.”  
Clara shrugged, trying to act nonchalant despite how much she had missed his antics.  
“I have an awesome surprise for you” he said, the excited glint in his eye. “Dress up warm.”  
Antics. 

Quinn held Clara’s hand as they wandered through the streets of London, finally arriving at the surprise. A Victorian style open carriage pulled by a shining black horse waited in the street, the driver watching them approach with a friendly smile.  
“A large part of the lads adventure was actually trying to book a carriage for us two tonight. Since we don’t really know the actual date that we became official I thought that we could just have an anniversary celebration today.”  
Clara was crying slightly and making no effort to hide it.  
“Did I do something wrong?” He muttered with a look of panic.  
“No, no, it’s perfect. Happy anniversary”.

“I wanted a sleigh but it wasn’t snowing enough, sorry.”  
“You don’t have to apologise, this is amazing. You are amazing.” She snuggled into his arm, watching the sights of London drift past from their seat in the back of the carriage. “Really, really amazing.”


	18. Mistletoe and Wine

Quinn looked at Clara next to him, her eyes closed and her hair sprawled across the pillow.  
“You look ethereal,” he said, softly.  
“Thank you,” she murmured back, rolling over to face him.  
“I knew you weren’t asleep.”  
“How?”  
“You weren’t snoring.”  
He ducked with a laugh as she threw a pillow at him, though she was laughing too. 

He followed her downstairs, promising to make her favourite breakfast as a continuation to the anniversary celebrations of the day before and as he entered the kitchen he felt something brush against the top of his head.  
“Ah.” He looked up. Mistletoe. He looked at Clara, who stood just in front of him pretending she hadn’t gotten up early to put it there before sneaking back to bed. She bit her lip and jumped into his arms when he opened them, closing her eyes when their lips met. When she pulled back and pressed her forehead against his Quinn grinned.  
“Why is it that after this long I’m still not used to how breathtaking you are” he whispered, making her giggle quietly. 

The rest of the day was much like this. Clara had managed to put mistletoe everywhere and as they were busy tidying for any family that would make surprise visits in the week leading up to Christmas they bumped into each other in every doorway. Every kiss left them distracted with flirting and dramatic confessions of love and the tidying was becoming a very slow process.

In the evening they decided it was clean enough and collapsed onto the couch with a bottle of wine and a film, realising that they hadn’t watched Love Actually yet. Quinn saw Clara move out of the corner of his eye and when he turned to face her she was holding mistletoe over their heads.  
“Last one and then we go back to kissing each other that often for no reason instead”.  
He laughed, leaning in. He brushed her cheek with his thumb, so distracted that they missed the big romantic confession of love at the end of the film. He smiled, slightly dazed and went to pour another glass of wine.  
“Isn’t this the wine we got for Linda?”  
Clara’s eyes widened and she nodded, though the panic on their faces soon turned to hysterical laughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t write many kiss scenes because I find them a lot easier to just draw than to describe but this was fun


	19. Deck the Halls (2)

“I think we need more Christmas decorations,” Quinn announced, very suddenly and very out of the blue, surprising Clara.  
“I think we’re drowning in them.” She said, putting down her book to gesture at the room.  
“Okay, but, counterpoint, making some would be fun.”

When Clara looked at Quinn his hand was covered in red paint and he was smiling proudly to himself as he pressed his handprint into the surface of a white bauble. He held out his hand for Clara and when she reached out to him he picked up the red paint, smiling even more.  
“What are we doing?” She said, letting him paint her hand with his tongue stuck out in concentration.  
“I was thinking about those cheesy family Christmas things where everyone has their handprint on a bauble and I thought it was dumb but then I thought about in the future when we have kids and then I wanted to do it.”  
“So why are we doing it now instead of when we have kids?” She said, watching as he held her hand in his to press it into a different ornament. “Quinn are you pregnant?”  
He laughed, smudging the print slightly. He furrowed his brow in frustration.  
“No I just couldn’t wait.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A really short one because I didn’t have much of a plan. Though to be fair the plan for chapter 21 just says ‘aaaaa’ so we’re gonna have fun with that one


	20. Secret Santa part 1

“What are the rules of secret Santa day?” Clara said, standing in front of a hardly concentrating Quinn, who sat on the couch, bouncing with excitement.  
“Wait my turn to open my gift, and after the Christmas party fiasco no three person piggybacks.”  
“Good. Let’s go.”  
He jumped up from the couch, running to the door and dropping his keys from his hands shaking with excitement.

They arrived at Amy and Rory’s house within an hour, though that may have been due to Quinn’s tendency to drive over the speed limit when he was excited, and soon he was bursting through their front door, presents in hand.  
“Ponds!”  
“Raggedy man! Unsurprisingly, just like every year, you are very early.”  
Over the next hour they were greeted by John and Rose, Jane and Yaz and Bill and Heather, all brimming with excitement.  
“Remember Quinn, we give each other presents and then we take it in turns to open them.” Amy said, handing him a drink and sitting on the floor next to him.  
“I know,” he whined. “Clara reminded me before we set off”.

The gift giving began. At this point all elements of secrecy were thrown out of the window. Quinn passed a gift to Jane, Clara to Rory, Amy to Rose and so on until everyone had a present sitting in front of them. Jane went first, being even more impatient than Quinn, shredding the wrapping paper with a grin to rival her brother’s. Three packets of custard creams fell into her lap, and she was so distracted by them that she didn’t notice the welding goggles and the fez. When she realised that there was more to the gift other than the pile of biscuits she gasped, immediately putting on the fez.  
“Another one for the collection!”  
Rory couldn’t help his excitement when he opened the medpack that Clara had bought him, earning a small amount of teasing from Amy, and Rose adored the perfume that Amy had bought her.   
“I feel like it’s not the most creative but..” Rory mumbled nervously as John opened his gift, revealing a pair of canvas sneakers.   
“I’ve never seen a man get so excited about shoes” Rose laughed. “Anyway, Bill and Heather, we both had each of you so we kinda got you a joint gift instead, so you should probably open them at the same time.”  
Bill glanced at Heather, and then they tore into their gifts. Bill’s contained a box of pin badges wrapped in a pride flag and an empty scrapbook and when she looked at Heather she saw her girlfriend holding a necklace with an old fashioned plane pendant and a scratch off map.  
“For your travels in the new year.” John explained. “You said social media is awesome but you’ve always wanted physical copies of things to remember adventures by.”  
“These are perfect.” Bill and Heather said in union.  
Bill had bought Yaz a camping trip for two to take Jane on, which Jane was equally excited about, seeing it being like getting two presents.  
Clara opened her present from Heather carefully, unfolding the wrapping paper from around it instead of shredding it open. Inside was a beautiful new motorbike helmet, vintage looking.  
“I know you were complaining that you missed biking after your old helmet broke but you were saving up for other things and kept putting off getting one.”   
“How did you know?”  
“To be completely honest, I was struggling to decide what to get you so I asked Quinn.” She said, gesturing to the man who was staring at his own present with impatient interest.  
Amy opened up her instant camera from Yaz with an excited yell, surprising even herself, followed by an even more excited noise from Quinn as it finally reached his turn to open his present from Jane.  
“Jammy dodgers!” He laughed.  
“Is it a genetic sibling thing that you’re so distracted by the biscuits that you don’t notice the rest of the gift?” Clara said, poking the box in his hand. He smiled sheepishly and opened the box. His jaw dropped. Inside there was a pair of cuff links made from tiny watch mechanisms and encased in silver.  
“They’re- they’re beautiful.” He mumbled, throwing himself at Jane for a hug.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone is wondering about the cuff links look up Charlie boots encased watch mechanism cuff links , I love them.


	21. Secret Santa part 2

They had carried on talking late into the night, leading to Amy inviting them to stay the night. John and Rose had to leave for a visit from Rose’s family but everyone else stayed, playing music and dancing until the sun began to rise. Bill and Heather danced sleepily with their foreheads touching and smiles on their faces and the early morning days behind them. Amy snapped a picture on her new camera.  
“The first one for your scrapbook.” She said, passing them the Polaroid.  
“This is amazing, you should be a photographer instead of editing that idiots videos” Bill said, pointing to Quinn, who was being filmed by Clara trying to do a handstand in the corner of the room. The two of them were laughing like hyenas.  
“I love editing Quinn’s videos. All that footage of him flirting with Clara that gets cut out of the videos he posts, it makes it so much easier to guess when he’ll finally propose.”  
“Oh so you edit his videos as a way of cheating on the bet?” Rory gasped.  
“You have a bet too?” Yaz laughed.   
“Wait we have a bet on it as well,” Bill joined, “And I think John and Rose do too, they’ll probably be awake by now, text them.”  
They stood, watching Jane’s phone anxiously as they waited for a response, Clara and Quinn still too busy making dumb videos to notice. A new text appeared from John.  
“How dare you think we would place bets our dear brothers love life. We both think it will be Valentine’s Day so there was no point in being competitive about it”.  
“See! I think it will be valentines too” Yaz said.  
“No, Quinn’s a cheesy dork but not that cheesy. I think their anniversary” Jane argued back, being interrupted by Amy.  
“They don’t even know when their anniversary is, I asked a bit ago and they said sometime around the middle of December but it depends on what you consider the start of the relationship. It’s going to be Christmas but in like 3 years.” Rory said.  
“Quinn’s impatient, I’m surprised he’s waited this long. I think New Year’s Eve.” Bill suggested.  
This argument continued for a while, being ended abruptly by the sound of Quinn falling flat on his face again, and they all watched quietly as Clara helped him back up and kissed his cheek where it was going red.  
“I don’t know when,” Heather whispered. “Just that Rory is wrong and there is absolutely no way they’re going to wait three years.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I listened to the Killing Eve soundtrack while I wrote the last couple of chapters and I think it’s the most productive I’ve been for a long time


	22. Blanket forts and board games

When Clara woke up it was still dark. The bed next to her was cold, Quinn’s arm no longer wrapped around her waist like most nights.  
“Quinn?” She whispered, blinking in the darkness. There was no response, and he was nowhere in the bed next to her. Confused and worried, she sat up, and her head brushed against something soft above her. She reached up, touching it. Something fluffy. Outside of the cocoon she heard the bedroom door opening and Quinn humming.  
“Did you build a blanket fort around me?”   
“Yep!”

There was a bright flash of light as Quinn picked up one of the blankets and crawled into the fort, placing a lamp, a stack of board games and a plate of food between them.  
“Quiet day, after the secret Santa turned sleepover turned trip to a+e after I fell on my face and Rory thought I might have concussion.” Quinn explained, taking a bite of a piece of toast.  
“You’re going to get crumbs in the bed.”  
“I’ll clean them up.”  
Clara nodded, leaning over to kiss him. When he opened his eyes the toast was gone from his hand and Clara was chewing quietly, a smile on her face.  
“Criminal. Criminal uses my post kiss daze to steal my toast.” He mumbled.  
“Total screaming genius, not criminal.”

“You owe me 50 monopoly monies.”  
“Clara, please, you own three sides of the board can you let this one go?”  
“No”.  
“You take my toast and now you take my money.” He mumbled sadly, passing her the scrap of paper. “I’m out of money. That was all of my money. You win.”  
Clara laughed, collecting up all of the fake notes.  
“Do you want to play operation next? Or trivial pursuit?”  
“No you memorised the cards. What about that one about history?”  
“You have a doctorate in history.”  
“You memorised trivial pursuit.”  
Clara groaned, looking back at the stack of games.  
“Operation then?”  
Quinn grinned and nodded enthusiastically, making Clara laugh. At least they were equally bad at this one.


	23. The Gingerbread Village

There would only be the two of them on Christmas Day. They had tried to find some family or friends to spend the day with but everyone had already made plans. John and Rose were with Rose’s family, the Ponds were in Leadworth. Bill and Heather had set off on their year long trip early and Yaz’s family had invited Jane and Yaz to spend the day with them even though they weren’t celebrating Christmas. The only people they could have been seeing was Dave Oswald, but Clara didn’t want her Christmas day ruined by Linda’s patronising and there was no way he’d come visit without her.   
This was Clara’s first thought when she entered the kitchen to discover eleven boxes of gingerbread house kits. Her second thought, of course, being ‘who does Quinn think is going to eat all of this’.  
“Ah, Clara! You’re here!”  
“What are we doing?”  
“Gingerbread” he said, pointing enthusiastically at the nearest box.”I’m going to build them all like a little town and then destroy them like Quinnzilla”  
“Quinn kong.” Clara said, nodding in agreement.  
“I don’t know what I’m doing after that I was too caught up in the fun of destroying them”  
“Sounds right for you.”

“Clara help”.  
Clara ran into the kitchen to find Quinn on his third gingerbread house, though numbers one and two could barely even be called caves. A piece of roof was firmly stuck to his arm and icing covered his fingers. Every attempt he made to remove the biscuit just coated it more in the glue-like icing.  
“Take off your shirt.”  
He reached up, smearing icing on the top button and grumbling in frustration before realising Clara was laughing, holding the roof piece.  
“Hey!” He laughed. “You didn’t need me to…” he trailed off, distracted by his new mission to wipe the icing from his hand on her arm.  
“Come on I’ll help you with the rest of the houses.”

By the end of the day a beautiful gingerbread house sat as the central piece to the dining table. Chocolate buttons formed tiles on the roof all lined with icing to give the appearance of snow. Candy canes and peppermint sweets decorated the house and Quinn had replaced the windows with jammy dodgers.  
“She’s beautiful.” Clara said. Quinn rested his arm around her waist.  
“We created a really wonderful one didn’t we?”  
“Shame the other ten collapsed.” She chuckled, taking a bite from a shattered piece of gingerbread as Quinn quietly closed the door, hiding the carnage in the kitchen.


	24. Christmas Eve

Lights sparkled outside, the smell of mulled wine drifted through house. Clara sat cross legged on the couch, Quinn with his head in her lap as she played with his hair. They both hummed softly, though not quite the same tune, making them both laugh.   
“I love you.” Quinn whispered. He rolled over so that he was looking up at her, admiring how her eyes shone and the way she smiled at him. “You’re like a goddess, I adore you with all my hearts.”  
“Hearts?”  
“There’s too much love it can’t all fit in just one.” He reached up, brushing a tear from her cheek. “Happy tear?”  
She nodded, speechless.

Quinn sat up, glancing at his watch.  
“One minute until to Christmas”  
Clara pressed herself into him, closing her eyes sleepily . She played with a button on his waistcoat, lost in thought and feeling madly in love.  
“Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one.” He whispered. “Merry Christmas Clara.”


	25. Christmas Day

Christmas Day 28 years ago~  
It was the perfect Christmas scene, people crowding the living room of Basil Smith’s house, talking happily. Two small boys, a scrawny one with spiky brown hair and his blond cousin stumbled around the room with their toys in hand, talking excitedly and tripping over bundles of discarded wrapping paper.  
Near the Christmas tree a woman was humming softly, cradling a small baby in a santa suit. She pulled an ornament off the tree and held it in front of him for him to grab in small fists.  
A blue police box, with some of the paint scraped off now held close to his chest as the little boy smiled.  
"This, Quinn, is the TARDIS. It takes us on all sorts of adventures," she whispered, gently prying it out of his hand to hang back on the tree. She settled on the couch, still cradling Quinn as the brown haired boy sat next to her.  
"That blue box brought your Dad to me. When he was s years old he saw it in a tiny shop in London and realised that it was damaged. He fell in love with it"

~~  
“You are so boring John” Basil whined, ruffling his younger brother’s hair.   
“Mum said I couldn’t have it.”  
“Who cares what mum said? It’s broken, they aren’t going to sell it anyway.”  
“It still has value though. I think it’s beautiful, so it must be valuable.”  
Basil laughed, picking up the ornament. “It’s really weird too. We’re in London, why not those red phone boxes.”  
“I like the blue boxes.” John mumbled, pushing it away Basil shoved it into his hands.  
“Steal it, steal it, steal it, steal it…” Basil whispered. John glanced at the shopkeeper, who was completely absorbed in his book.  
“If I do it will you shut up?”   
Basil nodded excitedly as John snatched the box from his hand, slipping it into his pocket. The brothers restrained excited giggles as they hurried out of the dismal shop, not daring to look back.  
Just as they closed the door, breathing sighs of relief they heard the sound of it swinging open again. Basil ran but John simply froze in shock, wincing as he turned around to look behind him. A girl, around his age with long brown hair and green eyes stared at him, and despite her youthful look she had the most stern expression and panic flooded through him. Suddenly she laughed and all of the tension and panic melted away.  
“I saw you take that” she said, still laughing.  
“I-I’m so sorry. My brother made me-“  
“Nah, don’t worry about it. I’m not telling,”  
“Really? But you caught me?”  
She shook her head again, grinning as he whispered ‘thank you’ and heading back into the shop. Basil’s arm around his shoulder made him jump, and a punch to his shoulder made him whine.

Guilt consumed John from the moment he had gotten home from the town. Perhaps if it hadn’t he would have gone back to see her again sooner. Perhaps he would have gone back before his family decided to move, before he was forced to go to Scotland. Perhaps he could have been friends with her, at least for the six months that he was still in London for. But he was terrified that if he went back to find her he would be in trouble.  
His parents didn’t even notice the blue box he had stolen on the shelf in his new room until two years after they had moved, and he had still gotten in trouble. He remembered how long his dad had yelled for, hot tears on his face like he was a small child. It was enough to scare him away from misbehaving for life. He became the golden child, as Basil grew wilder. Still the box was never far away, slipped into his pocket when he left the house and back into its rightful place on the shelf when he was at home. He came up with stories about his blue box, adventures in time and space.

To John, the greatest adventure of them all was going back to London, eight years after moving to Scotland. He hadn’t planned to go to London originally, but the more he stared at his blue box the more it told him to go home to the place where he had spent the first twelve years of his life. He wasn’t even sure where he was going until he ended up back at the shop, standing outside in the snow, greeted by tall girl with the greenest eyes.  
“Hello thief.” She whispered. From that day on, like he had stolen the blue box, she had stolen his heart.

“You telling the kids how we met again?” John laughed. He scooped the older boy, John Jr into his arms and sat next to his wife, running his thumb over the soft tufts of hair on Quinn’s head.

~

Two years later there was another baby added to the family, Jane. Most would have considered it another perfect Christmas, if it hadn’t have been for the empty armchair once occupied every year by John Sr. The oldest of his children now demanded that he was just called John now, since his dad wasn’t around to compare him too. It was a quieter Christmas, but the kids sat still and patient, listening to their mother tell them the story she told them every year, even if this year it was through tears.

~  
By the time John was ten he knew the story off by heart, and instead of sitting down to listen he wandered off, playing games with Harold or trying to learn to play Uncle Basil’s guitar, though six year old Quinn and four year old were as fascinated as ever. 

~

Jane lost interest in the annual story when she was eight, though she rarely managed to sit through it anyway. She was busy climbing trees in the cold, while John was busy trying to be cool. Only Quinn sat with his mother, listen intently and correcting her when she struggled over the words. That Christmas was one of the worst of Quinn’s life. He felt as though everyone was forgetting his dad, and he knew he was too and all he had to hold onto him with was the blue box and all of its adventures. He held onto it, running around, re-enacting one of his dad’s own stories that had been scribbled in an old notebook. As he ran the box disappeared from his grip, Harry stood behind him, holding it with a grin.   
“Give it back” he yelled, even though he knew it would only make Harry laugh. Harry’s laughter hurt all the same, and he cried quietly, not even bothering to fight back as he was pushed into a cupboard. He only had the energy to cry when he heard the sound of the lock clicking into place. He couldn’t even make himself want to shout for help as he sunk onto the cupboard floor, while he rested his head on his knees and felt the tears slowly soak through his favourite trousers. He had resigned himself to the fact that he was stuck forever, bound to go hungry while he waited for someone to come to his rescue.

“Where did you get that?” Uncle Basil’s voice thundered, just outside the cupboard.  
“Quinn let me play with it.” Harry lied. Even from inside the cupboard, Quinn found him almost believable. Basil was having none of it.  
“Where did you get it?” Basil growled again.  
“Why don’t you believe me, Uncle Basil, please?”  
“I am not your Uncle, where did you get that and where is Quinn?”  
Quinn didn’t hear the response, but seconds later the cupboard was filled with light and his uncle was pulling him into the fiercest of hugs.

~

Quinn still listened to the stories at eighteen, even if by now he was the one telling them. This Christmas he sat in a hotel room with the view of Moroccan coast stretching out in front of him.  
The view was not his focus, he was instead concentrating on his laptop on the desk, his family’s faces peering at him through the screen.  
“I love you guys, I really miss you and I promise I’ll stay safe. I’m with Amy and Rory. We’ll look after each other.”  
“Love you Quinn.”  
“Merry Christmas mum. See you soon, okay?”  
It hurt to see his mum look so weak. He’d considered skipping his gap year adventure to stay home and look after her, he had been right about to cancel all of his tickets but she made him promise he would go. He felt a little guilty for enjoying himself when she was so ill, but when he felt the blue box resting in his pocket he relaxed. This was supposed to be an adventure, and he was told that he had to at least try to have fun, whether he liked it or not.

The dreaded phone call and the emergency flight home came that June, almost a year since he had last been home.

~

The Christmas that followed should have been the worst ever. Quinn felt more alone than ever. No stories from his mum, never again would he hear her voice tell him his favourite story, the one he knew better than anyone else. Amy and Rory had moved to New York for university, and for the first year ever, the Smith family would not be at their Uncle Basil’s house for Christmas. Maybe they had unconsciously decided that it would hurt too much for them to spend the day together, still too painful for them to acknowledge yet another empty space at the dining table. The sweet, angelic woman was gone and it was tearing the Smiths apart.

Quinn’s travel videos on YouTube had made him enough money that he could afford a tiny apartment in London, so he could truly isolate himself instead of being stuck in student housing. The apartment was drab and dark. He laughed weakly. It felt like being locked in a cupboard. Except this time there wasn’t anyone to get him out. 

On the 23rd of December he realised that he hadn’t been outside since the university finished for Christmas. He didn’t care. As he did every day, he sunk into his armchair by the dirty window, a book on his lap. Something dug into him. He moved, only making it worse. He groaned and began to search the chair, finally finding the cause of the problem. A damaged blue box, which had fallen out of his pocket, presumably lost forever two months ago. If he believed that the universe cared about him he’d have called it a sign, but the universe did not care, and this was just unlucky. 

That evening the thought of the blue box still tugged at the back of his mind. A story, that a tiny, insignificant blue box can bring luck, if that even existed. So far it hadn’t brought much luck to him, but perhaps it was worth a try. The stolen box was where his story began, and the more he thought about it the more sure he became. He wanted to see where the box was from.

He kept his head down, hurrying through the streets. The shop was close, he could feel it. The place where his mum grew up, where his dad first met her and where he fell in love with her years later. The shop that started it all.   
The shop that was closed, and clearly had been for a long time.  
The only confirmation that the shop had even existed was a faded sign above the door. Other than that it was empty, the glass was gone from the windows and boards were nailed in place over the door. And as he walked back home, he realised that he was too exhausted to even feel sad, and his feelings were as numb as his hands in the midwinter snow.

“Oi” a voice cut through his thoughts. “Did you build that snowman?”  
He looked up for a second, seeing the snowman before he saw the girl, standing just outside some bar.  
“Are you okay?” Her voice softened as she approached him. “You seem to be crying.”  
He wiped the tears from his face, still unable to reply.  
“Free drink if you want to come in and talk about it. Or at least take your mind off whatever is going on.”  
He nodded. Alcohol didn’t sound so bad.

He hadn’t meant for it all to come tumbling out, but once he had told her about the shop he had to explain the significance and why he went looking and his plan to stay this mysterious stranger immediately went out the window. She told him about herself too. She was studying for an English degree, though she was more interested in creative writing. She was paying her way through college by working at the Rose and Crown and by tutoring the children of various family friends. That she had just turned nineteen last month and that her mum was ill like Quinn’s had been. 

When Clara called Quinn in March, sobbing in the middle of the night he was at her house within ten minutes.

~ 

The following Christmas was still far from the picture perfect Christmases of his youth, but with Clara it was a whole lot brighter. She cried when she opened her present from him, a Christmas tree ornament shaped like an orange leaf, and he adored the fez she bought for him.   
Later that evening, after she had gone home to spend Christmas with her family, he realised what he had been trying to avoid all night.  
“So you know my friend Clara?”   
“The one you totally have a crush on,” Amy replied, her mocking tone easily detectable even through text.  
“Yeah. I think I have a crush on her.”

~

It wasn’t until Christmas two years later that he did something about it. He invited her to a pantomime, then another date, and a week later, with only a few days until Christmas Day, he finally stopped dancing around the subject and confessed how he felt. And to his surprise, she felt the same. Maybe finding the blue box three years ago had been a sign.  
They fell in love that Christmas, and they fell more in love every Christmas.

Christmas Day, the present~

Quinn woke with a start, excitement bubbling up inside him as it did every Christmas. He woke Clara with a gentle nudge, not actually expecting it to work. She ate breakfast quietly, she picked at her food, and he was beginning to wonder if he had done something wrong.   
“You ready?” He said, taking her hands. He waited for her her careful nod before leading her into the living room, smiling at her and only receiving stares in response.   
“Are you okay?”  
“Yeah, just, I’m just excited.”  
He felt like she was lying.

He sat down by the tree, with her next to him and selected the first present to give to her, a new laptop for work. For the first time that morning she looked excited, hugging him tightly. She passed him his first present, an antique pocket watch, one of the most beautiful objects he had ever seen.   
This exchange continued as they worked their way through all of the presents that they had bought each other.  
Quinn passed her a box, watching patiently as she opened it. Inside was a glass star, shimmering in the colourful lights that filled the room.  
“Oh my stars.” Clara read the words carved into the surface. “Quinn, it’s beautiful. Could you put it on the tree for me?”   
He nodded eagerly and stood up to put it pride of place on the tree. When he looked down he gasped.

Clara was on one knee, holding a box decorated to look like his blue police box. She opened it, revealing a bow tie in the same shade of blue, stars and constellations woven into the fabric with silver thread.  
“I know you don’t really wear rings.” She started. She chuckled. “What was I so nervous about? You are the love of my life and I can’t picture spending it with anyone other than you. Wait no that was really cheesy. I called your Uncle and he absolutely loved this idea and he helped me plan it and the whole plan is just gone. I knew I loved you from our first proper date, but I loved you as a friend from when I dragged you into the Rose and Crown. You are my best friend and the one I love more than anything else on Earth and it’s getting cheesy again. Not that a Christmas proposal isn’t. Point is, this is a proposal. Quinn Smith, you are everything to me. I have spent the last few days desperately trying not to ruin the plan by getting excited and blurting this out. Will you marry me?”  
He nodded, bouncing on the balls of his feet.  
“Of course I will” he squeaked, “yes definitely this is perfect and amazing and I love you so much”  
She stood up, pulling him closer and kissing him. To them, it was the perfect Christmas scene

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AHAHAHAH IM DONE  
> I can finally go back to bookstore girl and my other super secret projects   
> I’m sorry if this chapter was long and confusing and there were a lot of time skips but I essentially wanted to fit a like 10 chapter long story into one so it’s 100% my fault but I had fun with it and I’m probably never going to read it again

**Author's Note:**

> There isn’t a specific prompt list for these I just made a list of Christmas vibes that I want time to do


End file.
